


everything you say has water under it

by tricatular



Category: Ea-nasir Tablet RPF
Genre: Epistolary, M/M, POV Outsider, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 17:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8999860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricatular/pseuds/tricatular
Summary: Tell Nanni: Ea-Nasir sends the following message:
   You owe more to me than one trifling mina of silver. The world's first known customer service complaint turns into a different sort of first.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [duckbunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckbunny/gifts).



> Your "ancient Mesopotamian sexting" prompt was too tempting to resist. I'm far from an expert in ancient Mesopotamia, since two undergrad classes on the ancient Near East and some last minute Yuletide research do not an expert make, but I hope you enjoy this and that it isn't totally inaccurate/implausible. Title is from The National's Brainy.

“Thank you so much for coming out here, Dr. Syed, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

Ibtihaj smiled and accepted Ms. Farthingale’s fervent handshake. The poor woman looked dusty and frazzled, but her smile was genuine as she gestured Ibtihaj into the gently ramshackle country manor. Ibtihaj had been corresponding with Ms. Farthingale for a couple of weeks now, since Ms. Farthingale had emailed her about some potential artifacts of value in her great uncle’s estate. As the man’s only remaining living relative, Ms. Farthingale was tasked with cleaning out his old house to prepare it for sale, a daunting job judging by the faintly overwhelmed emails she’d sent Ibtihaj. The old man had been something of a hoarder apparently, and the house he’d lived in for decades had been packed to the brim with assorted detritus, knick knacks, and artifacts. The items Ms. Farthingale wanted her to look at might yet be rummage sale curiosities, but some of the grainy phone pictures Ms. Farthingale had emailed had sent a thrill down Ibtihaj’s spine.

After the requisite greetings and offers of tea and rebuffing of offers of tea, Ms. Farthingale led Ibtihaj through the cramped and fitfully lit halls of the house, chattering all the while.

“I’ve done with the entire first floor finally, tossed most everything. None of it was fit for keeping. But the library was in good order, and there’s a local book dealer coming by to appraise and take the lot later this week. Do feel free to take a look yourself if you think there might be anything of interest in there. It’s the attic study that has all the odd stuff in it. I’ve tried not to disturb much in there, a lot of it looks delicate. I just can’t tell if it’s ancient junk, or _ancient_ junk, you know? And I reckon the museum will be interested if it’s proper _ancient_ junk.”

The museum would, indeed, be interested if it was proper ancient junk, as Ms. Farthingale called it. Ibtihaj suspected that it might be. Nigel Cholmondley Farthingale III had been one of those old breeds of gentlemen who fancied himself a scholar. He’d never published anything that Ibtihaj could find, though when she’d asked around, some of her colleagues said they’d received letters from him, debating finer points of Sumerian and Akkadian translations. Apart from such correspondence, the deceased Mr. Farthingale had apparently lived a reclusive, hermit-like life—modest, even, given the piles of inherited money he’d been doing little other than sitting on—and he’d had a small, quiet sort of death. The woman who did his cooking and cleaning had found him dead in his library some weeks back, of an apparent stroke. He hadn’t left behind anything other than this mid-sized manor and its contents, and a lot of money.

The stairs up to the attic study were poky and dark, a stark contrast to the study itself, a long, low room lit by a large window. There were crates and boxes everywhere, and a grand desk tucked into the corner by the window, where it got the room’s best light.

“I opened a few of the crates to send you pictures, but I’ve left the rest alone. Didn’t want to damage anything. And I couldn’t make heads nor tails of the work he left at his desk. It’s all on paper, don’t think the old man ever touched a computer in his life.”

Ibtihaj pulled a pair of gloves out of her bag and tugged them on. “Thank you, Ms. Farthingale. I’ll take a look around and let you know if there’s anything here the museum might be interested in.”

“Give a shout if you need anything! There’s tea and biscuits and all in the kitchen when you want to take a break.”

Once Ms. Farthingale left, Ibtihaj took a few photos of the study and all the boxes and crates. She pulled out her notebook and worked up a quick chart to keep track of the boxes and their contents, and only once that was done did she actually open one. If Mr. Farthingale had had an organizational system, it wasn’t one Ibtihaj could figure out on a cursory inspection of the boxes.

The first few she opened were full of carefully packed shards of pottery. There was a slip of paper taped to the inside of the box with a series of numbers. Perhaps that corresponded to a filing system whose key was at the desk. The shards of pottery were of mild interest, and she made a note to keep those boxes. The crate she opened next had considerably more exciting contents: ancient Mesopotamian stamp seals, and in the next crate, cylinder seals.

Who knew where Farthingale had gotten his hands on them; the last ten to twenty years had offered copious opportunities for a thriving black market trade in ancient artifacts looted from Iraqi museums, or found in bombed out cities. Some artifacts had been hidden away or smuggled out, but more had probably disappeared into the black market to make their way into the hands of private collectors who didn’t have many scruples about where the money they paid for the artifacts went. Farthingale, reclusive would-be scholar or not, might have been one of those unscrupulous private collectors.

Ibtihaj took careful photos of the seals before moving on to the next crates. These had neatly organized contents, and Ibtihaj had to stifle a little shriek of excitement when she saw fired clay tablets stored in careful rows. For a moment, she indulged wild fantasies: perhaps the tablets held more hymns authored by Enheduanna, or some of the missing fragments of the Epic of Gilgamesh, or even private correspondence. In all likelihood, they were probably just more contracts and trade-related documents, like the majority of tablets that had survived the millennia. She lifted one out to take a look, and saw the familiar wedge shapes of cuneiform. Most of the tablets seemed well-preserved, apart from the expected cracks. Some of the tablets were broken, or clearly missing chunks.

There were notebooks too in each of the crates containing the tablets. She flipped through one, finding what looked like drafts of translations. The late Mr. Farthingale had apparently taken a crack at translating the tablets himself. She’d need more than an afternoon to determine how accurate his translations were, if at all, but a quick skim of them showed the expected and familiar language of ancient Near Eastern business and trade correspondence, with ingots of copper this and mina of silver that, or the odd reference to the alik tilmun. She thought the boxes were maybe organized by location or origin, and scrawled a few notes to that effect in her own notebook.

She was going through the crates and boxes faster now, certain that she needed to take them back to the museum to be examined in more detail, under proper lighting, but she still stopped when she spotted a familiar and somewhat unexpected name in Farthingale’s translations. _Tell Nanni: Ea-Nasir sends the following message…._

_Tell Nanni: Ea-Nasir sends the following message:_

_You owe more to me than one trifling mina of silver. Come to Dilmun to make it right. Did not Sit-Sin arrive and return safely? The journey is not so difficult._

 

_Tell Ea-Nasir: Nanni sends the following message:_

_Will you give me my money bag if I come to Dilmun?_

 

_Tell Nanni: Ea-Nasir sends the following message:_

_Let us vie with each other and see. Perhaps you will be a match to the storm of my heart, and in this way we will see if you are worthy of my finest, largest ingots of copper._

 

_Tell Ea-Nasir: Nanni sends the following message:_

_You are like a wild bull lording it over the menfolk. A mighty comrade will come to you in Dilmun with the next trade ships, Shamash willing. I come to you as a gentleman, do not treat me with contempt._

Ibtihaj narrowed her eyes at the translations. Who knew if they were accurate or not, but this wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined the world’s oldest known customer service complaint had been resolved. The Gilgamesh references were clear, if baffling. She had a creeping suspicion about just what the quotes and paraphrases from the Epic of Gilgamesh meant, but surely that couldn’t be it. …Could it? She kept reading.

_Tell Nanni: Ea-Nasir sends the following message:_

_Was the quality of the copper ingots to your liking? I believe we are in accord now, now that we have kissed each other and formed a friendship._

_With this message, I also give to your messenger Sit-Sin one hundred [garments? linens?] to be sold in the markets of Ur. You must receive no less than two minas of silver for them…._

 

_Tell Ea-Nasir: Nanni sends the following message:_

_The copper ingots were acceptable. They were not the finest copper ingots I have had. I have sampled finer copper ingots in Larsa._

_I have received the one hundred garments to be sold in the markets of Ur. You are mad if you think they can be sold for two minas of silver. Did a blind child sew them? Would you defile your body with such rags? Again you treat me with contempt._

But Larsa didn’t produce copper….oh. _Oh._ They weren’t just talking about copper ingots, were they.

_Tell Nanni: Ea-Nasir sends the following message:_

_You malign the garments most unfairly. Perhaps you will change your mind when you see me wearing them. They do not defile my body. I am told they are most pleasing to the eye. I will be arriving in Ur with the next shipment of copper. Perhaps I will show you how fine the garments look upon the right body._

Ibtihaj closed the notebook then, cheeks flaming. Well. There was another historic first, she supposed. At least, if this translation was accurate and not just the fevered conjecture of an old man. From world’s oldest customer complaint to world’s oldest written booty call. Talk about a twist in the story.

 


End file.
